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The SPCTEW and Western Colleges: Religion and Higher Education in Mid-Nineteenth Century America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

James Findlay
James Findlay*
Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island
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Extract

The society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West was established in 1843 as one response of evangelical Protestants to the challenge of westward migration and the need to create a new society in the vast hinterland of America. Although the work of the Society has been known to students of nineteenth century American culture, the recent availability of the organization's letter files encourages a thorough re-examination of the SPCTEW's activities. The results fall roughly into a two-part sequence: first an analysis of the special set of religious attitudes and assumptions which motivated the Society and shaped its activities, and second, a description of the development and eventual decline of the organization itself, including discussion of some of the key events and forces which determined that development. Hopefully these twin concerns properly delineated will provide a better understanding of the significance of the SPCTEW in nineteenth century American religious and educational history.

Type
Article III
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , Spring 1977 , pp. 31 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. The origins of the Society are dealt with most authoritatively in Proceedings at the Quarter-Century Anniversary of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, Marietta, Ohio, November 7–10, 1860 (New York, 1868), pp. 4, 33, 38–53. A much briefer treatment appeared in First Annual Report of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West (New York, 1843), 5–7, and appendix. (Unless otherwise noted, all Annual Reports hereinafter cited are those of the SPCTEW). See also draft of “First Annual Report” by Theron Baldwin, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1, Congregational Library, Boston. Further comments on the founding are in Theron Baldwin (hereinafter cited as TB) to Calvin E. Stowe, May 9, 1861, Oct. 16, 1863 and April 24, 1868, SPCTEW Letterbooks, Congregational Library, Boston.Google Scholar

2. Donald Tewksbury was probably the first professional historian to recognize the importance of the SPCTEW and to utilize its publications extensively. See his The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the Civil War (New York Teachers College, Columbia University, 1932), Chs. 1, 2, especially pp. 72–89. Two Ph.D. dissertations, Bostrom, Harvey, “Contributions to Higher Education by the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, 1843–1874” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1960), and Peterson, Charles E. Jr., “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in the Old Northwest” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1960), are also useful. Peterson's work is more fully grounded in the basic historical materials and better written, but neither has established the full historical context in which one must understand the SPCTEW, and most important, neither is based on the manuscripts of the Society now available at the Congregational Library in Boston. The most recent published study about the SPCTEW, Johnson, Daniel T., “Financing the Western Colleges, 1844–1862,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 65 (Spring, 1972): 43–54, is too sketchy and discursive to be of much help. I wish to thank William McLoughlin and especially Travis Hedrick for their kindness in first pointing me to the SPCTEW collection at the Congregational Library in Boston. Dr. Hedrick and Timothy Smith of Johns Hopkins University also offered helpful critiques of this essay.Google Scholar

3. In characteristic style, Lyman Beecher claimed for himself a central role in conceiving and implementing the Society. See Cross, Barbara, ed., The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, 2 vols. (Cambridge Mass., 1961), pp. 11, 342–44. Although Beecher's role was not negligible, Theron Baldwin, another of the founders, put the matter in clearer perspective in TB to Edward Beecher, April 8, 1868, and TB to J. H. Linsley, April 1, 1865, SPCTEW Letterbooks. Edward Beecher, the son of Lyman and president of Illinois College at the time of the founding of the Society in 1843, was actively involved at the outset. Edward returned permanently to Boston in the mid-1840s, but remained for many years a member of the Board of Directors of the SPCTEW. Henry Ward Beecher, both in his pastorate in Indianapolis in the 1840's and later at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, handsomely supported the work of the Society, especially at Wabash and Illinois Colleges. Henry Ward Beecher also preached or lectured several times at annual meetings of the Society. Fifth Annual Report, 54–61; Twelfth Annual Report, 11; Beecher, , “Man and His Institutions,” in Permanent Documents, SPCTEW, Vol. III; TB to Lyman Beecher, March 18, 1850; to G. W. Crockett, July 9, 1850; to Charles White, June 12, 1848; to J. M. Ellis, November 8, 1848, SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

4. The list included evangelical ministers like Horace Bushneil, Edward N. Kirk, and Albert Barnes, important educators like Noah Porter, Mark Hopkins, and Theodore Woolsey, and even a layman like Anson G. Phelps. Like many of the best-known evangelical societies, the SPCTEW was an outgrowth of the old Plan of Union begun in 1801 by eastern Presbyterians and Congregationalists to facilitate cooperation in mission work in the west. The schism that divided Presbyterians nationally in 1837 meant that by 1843 supporters of the SPCTEW were primarily New School Presbyterians located chiefly in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and New England Congregationalists, plus the allies of all of these groups in states west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio River.Google Scholar

5. The history of the work of evangelicals in higher education in the west should be linked to their yet more comprehensive efforts to influence primary education throughout the nation, as suggested in Smith, Timothy, “Protestant Schooling and American Nationality, 1800–1850,” Journal of American History, 53 (March, 1967); 679–695, and Tyack, David B., “The Kingdom of God and the Common School”, Harvard Educational Review, 36 (Fall, 1966): 447–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Griffin, Clifford, Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865 (New Brunswick, N.J. 1960) 65–69, 310–311.Google Scholar

7. Eighth Annual Report, 17; Twelfth Annual Report, 16–17; J. M. Ellis to TB, January 25, 1847, January 22, 1855, William S. Tyler to TB, Dec. 23, 1854, February 15, 1855, Dennis Piatt to TB, Feb. 15, 1855, Sewell Harding to TB, March 30, 1855, Edward N. Kirk to TB, November 21, 1860, all in SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

8. Eventually these addresses were combined with the annual reports, then rebound into multi-volume sets of “Permanent Documents.” J. Emerson to TB, Nov. 11, 1851, E. Adams to TB, Feb. 4, 1857, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; TB to E. A. Park, July 11, 1850, TB to W. S. Tyler, Feb. 19, 1861, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Griffin, , Their Brothers' Keepers, 68–69, notes a similar practice followed by the Tract Society. The officials of the College Society also yearned to found their own periodical. There was at least one brief effort in the 1850's; but wishes were never permanently translated into deeds. The Western Intelligencer lasted for only a few issues. Twelfth Annual Report, 15–16; TB to G. H. Atkinson, Dec. 4, 1855, TB to A. L. Chapin, Jan. 30, 1856, SPCTEW Letterbooks; JQA Edgell to TB, March 26, 1855, April 9, 1857, A. Peters to TB, May 19, 1857, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1;TB to J. M. Sturtevant, Jan. 30, 1856, Sturtevant-Baldwin Collection, Illinois College Archives.Google Scholar

9. These comments may be viewed as supporting the general reassessment of the “age of the college” which educational historians have begun to initiate. Axtell, James, “The Death of the Liberal Arts College,” History of Education Quarterly, 11 (Winter, 1971): 339–352; Herbst, Jurgen, “American College History; Re-examination Underway,” History of Education Quarterly, 14 (Summer, 1974): 259–265; Potts, David, “Baptist Colleges in the Development of American Society, 1812–1861” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1967); Potts, David, “American Colleges in the Nineteenth Century; From Localism to Denominationalism,” History of Education Quarterly, 11 (Winter, 1971): 363–380; Allmendinger, David, Paupers and Scholars: The Transformation of Student Life in New England, 1760–1860 (New York, 1974); Hedrick, Travis, “Julian Monson Sturtevant and the Moral Machinery of Society: The New England Struggle Against Pluralism in the Old Northwest, 1829–1877” (Unpublished PhD. dissertation, Brown University, 1974); an unpublished ms. of Smith, Timothy, “The Religious Impulse to Higher Education in Illinois,” also contains numerous insights applicable here.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Beman, Nathan S. S., “Discourse,” appendix to Third Annual Report, 6; Fifth Annual Report, 57. See also Seventh Annual Report, 31, and Beecher, H. W., “An Address”, in Permanent Documents, SPCTEW, Vol. III, 13–14. See also Appendix, Second Annual Report, 19.Google Scholar

11. Second Annual Report, 16: J. M. Ellis to TB, Oct. 12, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1: Fourth Annual Report, 21; Thirteenth Annual Report, 12.Google Scholar

12. Griffin, , Their Brothers' Keepers, 140, 142; William Jenks to TB, May 22, 1844, J. M. Blagdon to TB, May 21, 1844, E. O. Hovey to TB, May 2, 1846, Seldon Hayes to TB, Jan. 17, 1849, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; First Annual Report, 25; Second Annual Report, 24–25; Seventh Annual Report, 32–33; Thirteenth Annual Report, 6.Google Scholar

13. Beman, N. S. S., “Discourse,” appendix, Third Annual Report, 23; Fourth Annual Report, p. 5. See also address by Edwin Hall appended to Ninth Annual Report, 5, 14–15; appendix, Second Annual Report, 19, 21.Google Scholar

14. J. H. Linsley to TB, Feb. 3, 1846, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; appendix, Twenty-First Annual Report, American Education Society, 63; First Annual Report, 27; Third Annual Report, 30. See also Sixth Annual Report, 16; appendix, Third Annual Report, 8. One should note also the tendency of these evangelical spokesman to dramatize their arguments by projecting their observations and conclusions about the Mississippi Valley into a global perspective. The last-cited quotation in this paragraph is one example. See also Second Annual Report, 13; appendix, Ninth Annual Report, 15. These statements only served to intensify further the sense of urgency the evangelicals felt about their tasks in the western areas.Google Scholar

15. There are the central themes of Griffin, , Their Brothers' Keeper, passim. Bostrom, Harvey B., “Contributions to Higher Education by the SPCTEW,” pp. 69, 71, provides data showing the social origins of the leaders of the SPCTEW. This information reveals clearly the elitist backgrounds of these people.Google Scholar

16. The nativist sentiments of these evangelicals have been well documented, and SPCTEW leaders were also fully in tune with these feelings. The people of the Western College Society were gravely concerned about the “recent immigration” to the West and “the consequent unorganized state of society.” One person used a vivid metaphor to describe the situation: “The iron is mixed with mirey clay … they cannot cleave to one another.” The solution, of course, was to Americanize the immigrants. They were simply “temporary nationalities,” ultimately “to be swallowed up in American life.” Fourth Annual Report, 21; Eighth Annual Report, p. 21; “Suggestions, etc., to Messrs. Stearns and Patton,” May 11, 1857, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1. See also Sixth Annual Report, 38–39; Eighth Annual Report, 51–55.Google Scholar

17. TB to J. M. Ellis, August 31, 1852, TB to W. I. Budington, Sept. 9, 1865, SPCTEW Letterbooks address of Edward Beecher, reprinted in Proceedings of a Public Meeting in Behalf of the Society for Promotion of Theological and Collegiate Education at the West, April 28, 1845, in SPCTEW Pamphlets, Vol. I, Harvard Divinity School Library, 4–6; Second Annual Report, 4, 15; Todd, John, “Plain Letters,” appendix to Third Annual Report, 24; Seventh Annual Report, 50; Third Annual Report, 13–15, 25, 29–30; Fourteenth Annual Report, 8.Google Scholar

18. For hints of these attitudes, see Sixth Annual Report, p. 42; Towne, Joseph H., “A Discourse,” appended to Tenth Annual Report, 35; and Storrs, Richard S., “A Discourse”, in Permanent Documents, Vol. Ill, p. 22. A comprehensive study of the impact of millenial thought upon nineteenth century American Protestantism and American culture generally is badly needed. Beginnings in this direction are in Tuveson, Ernest L., Redemmer Nation; The Idea of America's Millenial Role (Chicago, 1968); Maclear, J.F., “The Republic and The Millennium,” in Smith, Elwyn A., ed., The Religion of the Republic, (Philadelphia, 1971), pp. 183–216; and Sandeen, Ernest R., The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar

19. Remarks of Beman, N. S. S., appendix to Second Annual Report, 19, 21; “Thoughts of the President and Faculty of Western Reserve College to the Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West,” Dec. 11, 1844, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1: Second Annual Report, 4; remarks of Leonard Bacon in Proceedings of a Public Meeting in behalf of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West … May 28, 1845 , in Permanent Documents , SPCTEW, Vol. I, 9; Skinner, Thomas, “Education and Evangelism, a Discourse,” in ibid., Vol. I, 7–8: Sturtevant, J. M., “Address,” in ibid., Vol. II, 6–7; appendix to Sixth Annual Report, 47; Hall, Edwin, “A Discourse,” appendix to Ninth Annual Report, 5; TB to Miss L. J. Burnham, Jan. 26, 1847; TB to Rev. L. P. Hickok, April 30, 1847, TB to Rev. Lyman Beecher, Jan. 14, 1857, in SPCTEW Letterbooks, Congregational Library; Twenty-eighth Annual Report, American Education Society, 24–25.Google Scholar

20. First Annual Report, 27; Third Annual Report, 16–18; 33; see also Seventh Annual Report, 13; Thirteenth Annual Report, 11–12; Fifth Annual Report, 47, 49; Beman, N. S. S., “Discourse”, appendix, Third Annual Report, 10, 14; Towne, Joseph H., “A Discourse”, appendix to Tenth Annual Report, 10, Fourth Annual Report 27, 28; Sixth Annual Report, 59–63; TB to L. Kilbourne, July 19, 1857, SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

21. A printed circular of the SPCTEW, one of many distributed widely over the years in eastern states to advertise and explain the work of the Society, stated the point neatly: “The main object of fostering a few well-selected and approved Institutions is a native ministry. That theory of evangelization which overlooks the Christian College, ignores New England history.” “Western Colleges”, circular enclosed with J. Q. A. Edgell to TB, July 1, 1861, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 2. See also TB to J. M. Ellis, August 31, 1852; TB to W. I. Budington, Sept. 9, 1865, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Todd, John, “Plain Letters”, Third Annual Report, 12–13; Fourth Annual Report, 48; Haddock, C. B., “Address”, appendix to Fourth Annual Report, 20; Twelfth Annual Report, 9–10.Google Scholar

22. Seventh Annual Report, 13. See also Thirteenth Annual Report, 11–12. This attitude also served as one of the central motivations behind the founding of two other national benevolent organizations, the American Home Missionary Society, which sent thousands of workers to the same areas the SPCTEW served, and the American Education Society, which provided financial aid directly to indigent young men for college and seminary training prior to their entering the ministry in both eastern and western states. For a fascinating account of the work of the AHMS in one state beyond the Alleghenies, see Rudolph, L. C., Hoosier Zion: The Presbyterians in Early Indiana (New Haven, 1963). A recent dissertation covers the work of the AES; see Naylor, Natalie, “Raising a Learned Ministry: The American Education Society, 1815–1860,” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Teacher's College, Columbia University, 1971).Google Scholar

23. Tewksbury, Donald, The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before The Civil War (New York, 1932), pp. 104, 115–116. Methodists and Baptists founded the earliest colleges in Illinois and Indiana along with SPCTEW-supported schools like Illinois, Knox and Wabash. McKendree College, Indiana Asbury (Methodist), and Shurtleff and Franklin Colleges (Baptist), were all contemporaries of the previously named schools. In the beginning, all seven of these schools used the argument that there was a pressing need for an educated ministry within their denomination as a justification for their existence.Google Scholar

24. Thirteenth Annual Report, 21.Google Scholar

25. There are a number of excellent historical studies of revivalism and its interrelationship with the evangelical movement in America. See especially Weisburger, Bernard, They Gathered At the River: The Story of the Great Revivalists and their Impact upon Religion in America (Boston, 1958), and McLoughlin, William G., Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1959).Google Scholar

26. The personal concern with conversion affected Theron Baldwin, the director of the SPCTEW, and his family, as it did all evangelicals. Included among the relatively few personal statements he made while writing hundreds of letters over the years as director of the College Society are ruminations on the progress of his children towards a “saving experience”. In 1849 he wrote to a close confident that he had spent a weekend with his teenage daughter, who was visiting friends in Oxford, New York, and “you will rejoice with me when I say experience.” Almost a decade later, during the time of national revivals in 1858, he wrote to another friend that his son, then a freshman at Yale and “not pious,” was “deeply exercised in mind” by the student revival then occurring in New Haven. “Pray”, he went on, “that he may be brought into the kingdom.” TB to J. M. Ellis, July 10, 1849, SPCTEW Letterbooks; TB to A. L. Chapin, April 2, 1858, Beloit College Archives.Google Scholar

27. TB to Heman Humphrey, Sept. 7, 1852, SPCTEW Letterbooks; W. S. Tyler to TB, Dec. 23, 1854, Jan. 8, 1855, J. M. Ellis to TB, Jan. 1, 22, 26, 1855, Dennis Piatt to TB, Feb. 15, 1855, Sewall Harding to TB, March 30, 1855, “Account Sheet, Tyler Essay,” Sept. 23, 1856, all in SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

28. Words of President Charles White of Wabash College, quoted in “Scholarships in Western Colleges,” undated printed flyer, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1. See also TB to Charles White, Jan. 15, 1857, SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

29. Examples of these summaries of revival activity are in Fourth Annual Report, 19–20; Ninth Annual Report, 31–37; Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 5–13; see also handwritten report, A. L. Chapin to TB, August, 1855, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

30. Lyman Whitney to TB, April 17, 1855, ibid. See also Fifth Annual Report, 31–38; TB to J. J. Bushneil, March 9, 1849, TB to A. L. Chapin, Oct. 17, 1867, Beloit College Archives; TB to J. M. Sturtevant, June 27, 1850, TB to W. S. Tyler, April 28, 1853, SPCTEW Letterbooks. Following the Civil War Baldwin circulated a request among the SPCTEW-sponsored colleges for data on students and their war service. A key question was: “Were any of these converted in the Army?” TB to J. F. Tuttle, July 21, 1866, ibid. Google Scholar

31. TB to J. M. Sturtevant, Sept. 12, 1848; TB to Henry Smith, Dec. 26, 1848, ibid. Google Scholar

32. Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 40, 42–43; First Annual Report, 5–6; Fifth Annual Report, 7, 8–9.Google Scholar

33. The SPCTEW devoted nearly all of its energies supporting four year colleges. However, it did provide aid to Lane Seminary in the 1840's and later allocated small sums of money to support the theological departments of Oberlin and Wittenburg Colleges. Just before its demise the organization also offered aid to Pacific Theological Seminary in California. Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 93; Thirty-first Annual Report, 23–35.Google Scholar

34. Magoun, George F., “A Sermon …” appendix to Twenty-ninth Annual Report, 19; Thirty-first Annual Report, 13–30.Google Scholar

35. The most thorough account of Baldwin's early life and educational activities in Illinois is in Peterson, , “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in the Old Northwest,” chaps. 1–4. See also Baldwin, Caroline W., “Unpublished Notes on the Life of Theron Baldwin, 1885,” Baldwin papers, Monticello College Collection, Illinois State Historical Society; and Sturtevant, Julian M., A Sketch of Theron Baldwin (Boston, 1875). Baldwin's correspondence in later years contained numerous reflections on his life in Illinois, which he invariably recalled with emotion and affection. He retained his membership in the presbytery of Alton, Illinois at least until the mid-1850's, preserving thereby “one of the old but living chords which bind me to the west and which operates as a channel of sympathy with brethren with whom I formerly rejoiced to labor in that destitute but interesting field.” TB to A. L. Morton, March 27, 1852, SPCTEW Letterbooks, Congregational Library, Boston. See also TB to J. M. Sturtevant, August 29, 1862, Sturtevant-Baldwin Correspondence, Illinois College Archives.Google Scholar

36. Griffin, Clifford, Their Brothers' Keepers, chap. 5; TB to James A. Hawley, Nov. 10, 1847, TB to J. C. Holbrook, March 4, 1863, TB to William Barbour, March 18, 1867, in SPCTEW Letterbooks; JQA Edgell, to TB, Jan. 25, 1855, W. M. Barbour to TB, March 19, 1867, in SPCTEW Correspondence, Boxes 1 and 2.Google Scholar

37. Peterson, , “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in the Old Northwest,” p. 301. The change in the Society's system of tabulating gifts and collections, begun in 1864, makes it very difficult to compare meaningfully the statistics of the post-Civil War period with those of earlier years.Google Scholar

38. For statistics on the budgets of other benevolent societies, see Griffin, , 79–80; Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 60–70. In 1848, administrative costs including the salaries and expenses of the executive secretary, collection agents in the field, and the treasurer of the Society, amounted to about one-sixth of the total sum collected during the year. Fifth Annual Report, pp. 11, 12. The ratio of administrative costs to other disbursements seems to have remained fairly constant over the years. See, for example, Eighth Annual Report, 18–19; Thirteenth Annual Report, 26–27; Peterson, , “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in New England,” pp. 301–306. Detailed figures describing the financial impact of the Society on the western colleges are in ibid., pp. 222–234, 297–306, and Bostrom, , “Contributions to Higher Education by the SPCTEW,” pp. 129–133, 159, 165–166. Both studies contain valuable tabulations of the financial data for the entire thirty-one year period of existence.Google Scholar

39. One helpful document outlines the budget of Beloit College for 1855–56, including exact figures for total income and also the Society's contribution to that income. The SPCTEW provided $1400 out of a total sum of $7531, more than 18% of funds available for operating expenses. Since Beloit's operating costs for 1855–56 were $7441, it is clear that the Society's gifts were crucial that year in achieving a balanced budget. Untitled “Report of Beloit College for renewal of support, 1856–57,” in SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1. See also “Application to Western College Society, August, 1855,” in Beloit College Archives.Google Scholar

40. Eighteenth Annual Report, pp. 10–12, 14, 15, 16; these statements, all enthusiastically commending the SPCTEW's efforts, were often requested by the Society, to serve as a part of promotional programs via the Annual Reports. They should be used, therefore, very carefully. See also A. L. Chapin to TB, May 25, 1855, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; A. L. Chapin to TB, May 22, 1850, Beloit College Archives.Google Scholar

41. Twenty-fifth Annual Report, p. 108; see also TB to Rev. E. Mason, Nov. 20, 1847, TB to William Ropes, July 19, 1851, TB to J. M. Sturtevant, Nov. 15, 1851, TB to John Wheeler, April 12, 1858, SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

42. Over the years the managing director was insistent in his demands that the guidelines of the Society be followed exactly each year. His instructions to western college officials were detailed and very precise. For example, see TB to E. O. Hovey, Sept. 19, 1845, TB to Charles White, June 12, 1848, TB to Flavel Bascom, Oct. 10, 1851, TB to L. Nollan, Sept. 6, 1852, TB to Bishop Payne, August 22, 1866, TB to J. Blanchard, May 4, 1868, all in ibid.; Joseph Emerson to TB, Aug. 13, 1851, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1. Lengthy and fascinating accounts of one of the inspection tqps to the west by eastern observers are to be found in Towne, J. H. and Eddy, A. D., “Report of Knox College, 1846, for the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West”; and same authors, “Report on Illinois College, 1846 …,” both mss. in SPCTEW Papers, Congregational Library, Boston. See also TB to Mason Grosvenor, Sept. 22, 1851, TB to J. Q. A. Edgell, March 9, 1858, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Peterson, , “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in the Old Northwest,” 242–245; TB to A. L. Chapin, Dec. 4, 1855, “Application to Western College Society, August, 1855,” Beloit College Archives.Google Scholar

43. Sturtevant, J. M., president of Illinois College for almost the entire period of the Society's existence, had migrated from New England to Illinois with Theron Baldwin as a young man and remained one of Baldwin's closest advisors. Julian Sturtevant, An Autobiography (New York, 1896), pp. 134–142. The extended correspondence between the two men, available in the Illinois College Archives, reveals in great detail the relationship. Also influential were A. L. Chapin, president of Beloit College, E. O. Hovey, a professor at Wabash College for more than three decades, and Henry Durant, president of the College of California, a school founded in the 1850's which quickly received strong support from the SPCTEW. A prominent college president in the midwest who frequently and vigorously disagreed with Baldwin, Jonathan Blanchard, found it difficult to achieve substantial support for Knox College, and later Wheaton College, in Illinois. J. Blanchard to TB, Oct. 14, 1845, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; J. Blanchard to TB, Nov. 19, 1865, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 2; TB to H. Smith, Nov. 10, 1845, TB to J. Blanchard, Dec. 27, 1848, and TB to C.Y. Hammond, Sept. 9, 1865, SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

44. JQA Edgell to TB, Jan. 25, 1855, March 12, 1861, B.C. Webster to TB, June 21, 1855, Charles White to TB, March 16, 1857, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; TB to Edgell, J. Q. A., Jan. 22, 1859, TB to Perit, Pelatiah, Jan. 24, 1863, TB to Thompson, J. P., Nov. 23, 1863, SPCTEW Letterbooks; TB to Chapin, A. L., July 14, 1858, Beloit College Archives; Sturtevant, J. M. to TB, Nov. 10, 1853, April 27, 1857, Sturtevant-Baldwin Correspondence, Illinois College Archives.Google Scholar

45. TB to Sturtevant, J. M., October 20, 1851, TB to Turner, Asa, April 18, 1861, SPCTEW Letterbooks. See also Peterson, , “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in the Old Northwest,” 235–241; TB to Peet, Stephen, March 11, Aug. 7, 1847, Beloit College Archives. Baldwin played an important personal role in securing Joseph Tuttle as president of Wabash in 1862. TB to Hovey, E. O., Nov. 29, 1861, Jan. 2, 1862, TB to Edgell, JQA, March 18, 1862, all in SPCTEW Letterbooks; Hovey, E. O. to TB, Nov. 4, 1861, Jan. 7, Jan. 21, Feb. 28, 1862, Tuttle, Joseph F. to TB, March 13, 1862, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 2.Google Scholar

46. This occurred in the case of Western Reserve College in 1855 and at Knox College at the time of Jonathan Blanchard's resignation as president in 1857. Kirk, Edward N. to TB, March 24, 1855, Whalley, S. H. to TB, March 26, 1855, Bascom, Flavel to TB, June 30, 1857, Wright, Samuel G. to TB, Oct. 16, Nov. 10, 1857, all in SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

47. TB to Ellis, J. M., Feb. 18, March 10, 1852, TB to Emerson, Joseph, March 12, 1852, SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

48. Adams, Samuel S. to TB, Jan. 17, 1846, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; Chapin, A. L. to TB, April 12, 1862, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 2; TB to Post, L. M., April 24, 1846, SPCTEW Letterbooks, are representative examples of this type of material scattered throughout the manuscripts available at the Congregational Library.Google Scholar

49. This was a key term used by Baldwin, Theron to describe the work of the SPCTEW in Twenty-Fifth Annual Report, p. 95.Google Scholar

50. Twenty-Fourth Annual Report, AES, pp. 76, 77.Google Scholar

51. Compare, for example, statistics regarding collection of funds and the number of local branches of the AES in the following reports of that society: ibid., 91–93; Twenty-Seventh Annual Report (1842), p. 27; Thirtieth Annual Report (1845), p. 21. Naylor, Natalie, “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 70–80, provides a good account of those difficulties.Google Scholar

52. Twenty-First Annual Report, AES, pp. 28, 44–47. An important analysis of the AES, emphasizing its developing professionalism and bureaucratization, is in Allmendinger, David, “The Strangeness of the American Education Society: Indigent Students and the New Charity, 1815–1840,” History of Education Quarterly, 2 (Spring 1971): 3–22. Parallels with the internal development of the SPCTEW are instructive.Google Scholar

53. TB to Allen, D. H., March 28, 1845, SPCTEW Letterbooks. TB to Sturtevant, J. M., May 18, 1848, and TB to Charles White, June 12, 1848, ibid., discuss the administrative advantages to be gained from combining the two organizations. See also TB to Sturtevant, J. M., April 1, 1845, TB to Park, H. G., July 15, 1846, ibid.; Grant, Joel to TB, Sept. 26, 1845, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

54. TB to Pierce, G. E., Aug. 9, 1849, TB to Shaw, J. B., Aug. 14, 1849, TB to Lyman, Huntington, TB to Hatfield, E. F., both Nov. 12, 1849, to Seeley, S.J., Oct. 27, 1949, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Sixth Annual Report, 14–15; TB to Bushneil, J. J., March 9, April 17, Nov. 30, 1849, Beloit College Archives.Google Scholar

55. TB to Sturtevant, J. M., May 18, 1848, TB to White, Charles, June 12, 1848, TB to Ellis, J. M., Nov. 8, 1848, all in SPCTEW Letterbooks.Google Scholar

56. Eleventh Annual Report, p. 16; see also TB to Emerson, Joseph, Feb. 12, 1853, TB to Anderson, R., May 18, May 21, 1853, TB to Tarbox, I. N., May 18, 20, 1853, TB to Kirk, E. N., May 20, 1853, SPCTEW Letterbooks; “Report of Select Committee,” appendix Tenth Annual Report, 56; Thirty-Eighth Annual Report, AES, pp. 13–15.Google Scholar

57. The documents reveal that personal attacks were launched several times against the secretary of the SPCTEW, who was absent from the Boston meetings, and the fear was re-stated several times that through the fusion movement the College Society would “swallow up” the Central American Education Society of New York, a branch of the AES. Edgell, J.Q.A. to Baldwin, T., Feb. 22, 1854, and Ellis, J. M. to Baldwin, T., Feb. 24, 1854, in folder, “1854, Plan of Union, AES and SPCTEW,” in AES Papers, Congregational Library, Boston.Google Scholar

58. See especially the paraphrasing of comments of “Dr. Waterbury” at the Boston meeting in Ellis, J. M. to Baldwin, T., Feb. 24, 1854, ibid., and more indirectly, Thirty-Eighth Annual Report, AES, p. 13; Eleventh Annual Report, SPCTEW, p. 16.Google Scholar

59. Remarks of Professor Stowe of Andover Seminary, as paraphrased in Edgell, J. Q. A. to Baldwin, T., Feb. 22, 1854, folder, “1854, Plan of Union, AES and SPCTEW,” AES Papers, Congregational Library.Google Scholar

60. Marsden, George, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience (New Haven, 1970), chaps. 5, 6; Smith, Elwyn A., “The Forming of a Modern American Denomination,” Church Hisory, 31 (March, 1962): 74–99; Pearson, Samuel C. Jr., “From Church to Denomination: American Congregationalism in the Nineteenth Century,” Church History, 38 (March, 1969): 67–87; Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” pp. 141–157.Google Scholar

61. Pearson, , “From Church to Denomination,” p. 85. After 1854 the AES moved into very close connections with the Congregationalists until by 1860 it had become the quasi-official education board of that denomination. Naylor, , “Raising a Learned Ministry,” p. 157.Google Scholar

62. Lyman Beecher to TB, Sept. 15, 1843, “Extracts from Dr. Beecher's correspondence with Rev. T. Baldwin,” SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

63. The peculiar nature and timing of this revived sense of denominationalism undoubtedly stemmed from the decision of Congregationalists to withdraw from the long established Plan of Union in 1852. According to one historian recently, New School Presbyterians reacted to this action by their former partners “with righteous indignation and a sense of betrayal,” and in the years immediately following engaged in “a virtual promotional contest with the Congregationalists.” Marsden, , The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience, pp. 128, 129. For isolated expressions of concern about denominationalism prior to 1852 within the leadership of the SPCTEW, see Fourth Annual Report, SPCTEW, 21; TB to Blanchard, Jonathan, May 20, 1850, SPCTEW Letterbooks; undated ms. in TB's handwriting, folder dated “1851”, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1. For earlier evidence of Congregational self-consciousness in a key area of the west influenced by the SPCTEW, we Spinka, Mathew, ed., A History of Illinois Congregational and Christian Churches (Chicago, 1944), Chap. 3; Hedrick, , “Julian M. Sturtevant and the Moral Machinery of Society,” Chaps. 7, 8.Google Scholar

64. TB to Brainerd, Thomas, March 8, 1853, TB to Gale, G. W., March 17, 1853, TB to Hopkins, Mark, Oct. 13, 1855, TB to Gillett, E. J., Feb. 20, 1858, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Bullen, Henry L. to TB, Oct. 19, 1854, Gillett, E. S. to TB, Feb. 3, 1857, Platt, Dennis to TB, April 8, 1857, Flavel Bascom to TB, June 30, 1857, Wright, S. G. to TB, Oct. 16, Nov. 10, 1857, Chapin, A. L. to TB, Aug. 13, 1858, all in SPCTEW Correspondence Box 1.Google Scholar

65. TB to Bullard, Rev. A., Oct. 13, 1855, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Edwin Hall to TB, Oct. 16, 1857, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1; Fifteenth Annual Report, SPCTEW, p. 23. Although the question has not yet been answered systematically by historians, there is evidence to suggest that a similar reassertation of strong denominational ties was occurring in other evangelical groups. David Potts5 investigations regarding the Baptists and higher education during this time period are very instructive in this regard. See Potts' dissertation and his article cited in footnote #9.Google Scholar

66. TB to Brainard, Thomas, May 9, 1862, SPCTEW letterbooks, is very revealing in this regard. See also, TB to Crowell, John, Nov. 25, 1864, ibid., TB to Bushneil, J. J., May 20, 1850, Beloit College Archives. The historical roots of these attitudes espoused by Baldwin, Sturtevant and many of their closet supporters in evangelical educational circles are discussed in Herbst, Jürgen, “The Eighteenth Century Origins of the Split between Private and Public Higher Education in the United States” History of Education Quarterly, 15 (Fall, 1975): 273–281.Google Scholar

67. Fifteenth Annual Report, p. 20; TB to Magoun, G. F. and Butler, Jacob, July 30, 1861, SPCTEW Letterbooks. See also TB to Reed, J. A., Nov. 8, ibid.; Chapin, A. L. to TB, Aug. 27, 1855, and untitled “Report from Beloit College to the Society, 1855–56,” SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 1.Google Scholar

68. TB to Budington, W. I., Sept. 9, 1865, TB to Brainerd, Thomas, Dec. 19, 1865, TB to Tyler, W. S., March 5, 1866, TB to Robert, C. R., Oct. 2, 1866, TB to Payne, Bishop David A., Aug. 22, 1866, TB to Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Aug. 22, 1867, all in SPCTEW letterbooks; Twenty-Third Annual Report, pp. 21, 57–66.Google Scholar

69. Whalley, S. H. to TB, Nov. 8, 1861, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 2.Google Scholar

70. Each annual report of the SPCTEW contained a minute accounting of the past year's receipts. These compilations serve as the basis of the comments about the nature of the Society's patterns of benevolence. For example, see Thirteenth Annual Report, pp. 54–57, Sixteenth Annual Report, pp. 38–40.Google Scholar

71. Compare individual donations as recorded in Twenty-Fifth Annual Report, 141–144, with similar figures in Seventh Annual Report, pp. 42–45; Thirty-First Annual Report, p. 40.Google Scholar

72. Twenty-Second Annual Report, pp. 12–14; Twenty-Third Annual Report, pp. 16–17, 33–35, 36; TB to Kirk, E. N., Jan. 9, 1863, TB to Sturtevant, J. M., Jan. 16, 1863, TB to Williston, S., Jan. 16, 1863, SPCTEW Letterbooks. The general historical context of philanthropic giving for American higher education is provided by Curti, Merle and Nash, Roderick, in Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education (New Brunswick, N.J. 1965).Google Scholar

73. Welter, Rush, Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America (New York, 1962), especially pp. 105–109. Baldwin, Theron had actively participated in this movement as it swept over Illinois in the 1830's. Peterson, , “Theron Baldwin and Higher Education in the Old Northwest,” Chap. 2.Google Scholar

74. Summaries of the historical forces that produced these public institutions of higher education in the present-day middle west are in Curti, Merle and Carstenson, Vernon, The University of Wisconsin, A History, 1848–1925 (2 vols., Madison, Wisconsin, 1949), I, pp. 3–34, and Solberg, Winton U. The University of Illinois, 1867–1894: An Intellectual and Cultural History (Urbana, Illinois, 1968), chaps. 1 8c 2.Google Scholar

75. Twentieth Annual Report, p. 9. See also ibid., 13–14; Smith, Henry, “The Argument for Christian Colleges,” appended to Fourteenth Annual Report, p. 13.Google Scholar

76. Solberg, , The University of Illinois, pp. 60–61, 62, 74–75; Kersey, Harry A. Jr., John Milton Gregory and the University of Illinois (Urbana, Illinois, 1968), pp. 59–60, 61–63; TB to Bateman, Newton, Sept. 4, 1963, TB to Pickard, J. S., Sept. 8, 1863, TB to Sturtevant, J. M., Jan. 28, Feb. 28, March 9, 1867, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Sturtevant, J. M. to TB, Dec. 12, 31, 1866, Jan. 5, 19, 25, Feb. 6, 9, March 2, 1867, Sturtevant-Baldwin correspondence, Illinois College Archives. Hedrick, , “Julian M. Sturtevant and the Moral Machinery of Society” chaps. 9, 12, contains important material on this struggle in Illinois. Herbst, Jürgen, “Eighteenth Century Origins of the Split Between Private and Public Higher Education,” pp. 276–278, connects the plans of Sturtevant to a yet earlier model for higher education suggested by Ezra Stiles in the 1760's.Google Scholar

77. Twentieth Annual Report, p. 43.Google Scholar

78. Thirty-First Annual Report, 40. The huge sums reported in the sixties included large gifts for endowment purposes in the schools sponsored by the SPCTEW. Prior to the Civil War, when the Society raised money only to support current budgets of the colleges, such gifts were never reported.Google Scholar

79. “Minutes, Consulting Committee and Executive Committee, SPCTEW, 1872–1874,” SPCTEW Papers, Congregational Library, Boston; Thirty-First Annual Report, pp. 7–11.Google Scholar

80. TB to Cleaveland, J. P., Dec. 21, 1860, TB to Bacon, L., April 18, 1863, TB to Ropes, William, Jan. 10, 1863, TB to Rich, A. B., Dec. 27, 1867, Jan. 17, 1868, TB to Tuttle, J. F., April 18, 1868, SPCTEW Letterbooks; Whalley, S. H. to TB, Nov. 8, 1861, Palmer, C. R. to T.B., Dec. 20, 1867, SPCTEW Correspondence, Box 2.Google Scholar

81. Pearson, , “From Church to Denomination;” 79–80, 82–84, 86; Thirty-First Annual Report, p. 7. Over thirty letters between Baldwin and Bacon are included in the Bacon Family Collection, Yale University Library; the letters suggest quite a bit about the relationship between the two men over the years.Google Scholar

82. McKendree College, established by the Methodists of Illinois in 1834, sent agents immediately to the East Coast to solicit funds. The founders of the college explicitly modelled their operations after Wesleyan University in Connecticut and recruited early faculty from that school. Shurtleff College, the first Baptist school in Illinois, received its name early in its existence from a wealthy Boston benefactor, Benjamin Shurtleff, who donated $10,000 to the college. Close connections between the leaders of the national Baptist missionary societies, centered on the east coast, and the founders of both Shurtleff and Franklin (Indiana) colleges can be traced in documents in the archives of Franklin College. Minutes, Board of Trustees, McKendree College, Apri. 14, June 9, June 23, December 17, 1836, McKendree College Administrative officers; Minutes, Board of Trustees, Shurtleff College, Nov. 25, 1835, Illinois State Historical Library; Minutes, Board of Trustees, Franklin College, Oct. 8, 1835, Business Office, Franklin College; D. Sharp to Holman, Jesse, June 26, 1828, Malcolm, Harvard to Holman, Dec, 1829, Peck, J. M. to Holman, July, 1834, Wilder, W. to Holman, , March 12, 1835, Allen, I. M. to Holman, , Oct. 14, 1835, all in Jesse Holman Correspondence, Franklin College Archives.Google Scholar

83. For suggestive inferences in this regard, see Mathews, Donald, “The Second Great Awakening as an Organizing Process, 1780–1830,” American Quarterly, 20 (Spring, 1969):23–43; Farnham, Wallace, “The Weakened Spring of Government': A Study of Nineteenth Century American History,” American Historical Review, 68 (April, 1963), 662–680; Berthoff, Rowland, An Unsettled People: Social Order and Disorder in American History (New York, 1971), Part 2.Google Scholar

84. A comprehensive overview applicable to this topic is in Ahlstrom, Sydney, A Religious History of the American People, Part VII, sections 44, 46–48. More specifically, consult Sandeen, Ernest R., The Roots of Fundamentalism, and “The Princeton Theology: One Source of Biblical Literalism in American Protestantism,” Church History, 31 (September, 1962): 307–21; Kraus, C. Norman, Dispensationalism in America: Its Rise and Development (Richmond, Va., 1958); Hopkins, C. Howard, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865–1915 (New Haven, 1940); and Smith, Timothy, Called Unto Holiness: The Story of the Nazarenes, The Formative Years (Kansas City, 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar